Over a period of twelve-days, German artist Wolfgang Weileder presented an extraordinary, site-specific sculpture in Centenary Square, Birmingham.
Builders from r.bau Construction aided by student apprentices from the CITB/South Birmingham College simultaneously constructed and deconstructed a series of house shells reminiscent of six interlocking Victorian terraces. Five metres high, they were juxtaposed via a rotational symmetry and built from lightweight cellular concrete blocks, involving a new fast-bonding dry-assembly construction technique. By completion of the project, two separate terrace structures had been built in the same place at the same time. The inter-locking walls appeared and disappeared seamlessly each day with the ‘finished’ structure only to be recorded in ghostly fashion, by time-lapse photographs and a stop frame DVD.
house-birmingham revealed the process, labour and skills involved throughout the initial stages of building as a visible experience. The construction became an event, a unique spectacle and spatial experience of a process in flux rather than the presentation of a finished structure. Thus raising questions about the permanence of architectural structures, their relationship to their surroundings, and the nature of housing. On completion of the project, all the building materials were re-used by the students in their own projects.
Please visit www.house-projects.com for further information.